Wendy Graham – författare

Founded by a band of young iconoclasts, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood stunned Victorian England with its revaluation of culture and lifestyle. With Pre-Raphaelitism ascendant in the 1850s and canonical by the 1880s, the movement's refractory reception history is an object lesson in how avant-gardes burst upon the scene, dispense with their antagonistic posture, and become a mainstay of tradition. Wendy Graham traces the critical discourses that greeted the Pre-Raphaelites' debut, shaped their contemporary reception, and continued to inform responses to them well after their heyday. She explains the mechanics of fame and the politics of scandal contributing to the rise of aestheticism, providing a new interpretation of the place of aesthetic counterculture in Victorian England. Critics, Coteries, and Pre-Raphaelite Celebrity sheds new light on Victorian discourses on sexuality and masculinity through a thick description of literary bravado, the emotions of male bonding within cliques, and homoerotic frissons among the creators and reviewers of Pre-Raphaelitism.She threads together the qualities that made William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, and Gabriel Rossetti exemplary figures of aesthetic celebrity in the 1850s; Algernon Swinburne and Simeon Solomon in the 1860s; and Edward Burne-Jones and Walter Pater in the 1870s. The book documents the symbiotic relationship between periodical writers and the artists and poets they helped make famous, demonstrating that the origin myth of Bohemian artistic transcendence was connected with the rise of a professional class of journalists. Graham shows that the Pre-Raphaelites innovated many of the phenomena now associated with Oscar Wilde, arguing that they were foundational for him in forging an artistic and personal identity with a full-blown publicity apparatus. Wilde had models. This book is about them.

This provocative book argues that in his fiction Henry James was more canny about sexual identities, more focused on sexual pleasure, and more insistent on flouting heterosexual convention than has been acknowledged by his critics and biographers. Without leaping to the construction of a "gay" Henry James, whose writings aver a conscious sexual preference, the author demonstrates James's deep engagement with the construct of sexual "inversion," his familiarity with the tropes and traffic of the late-Victorian sexual underground, and his resistance to the cultural codes and institutions that disciplined social and private behavior.The volume aligns biographical and textual readings with specific topics in intellectual and cultural history, placing the novelist and his works within the key discursive frameworks that emerged during his lifetime: mental hygiene, sexology, psychiatry, and cultural anthropology. In reconsidering James's reputed celibacy and effeminacy, the author makes use of recent gender and queer theory, while remaining carefully attentive to the contemporary terms at James's disposal for understanding his own sexuality and gender identification.The author also elaborates the family dynamics that affected James's gender and professional identity conflicts, notably his turbulent relations with his brother William James, whose pathologizing of the "unhygienic" creative life conditioned his thinking about both sexuality and art. Extended discussions of four novels—Roderick Hudson, The Bostonians, The Princess Casamassima, and The Wings of the Dove—underscore James's resistance to the disciplinary mechanisms that regulate homoerotic desire under the aegis of mental hygiene and sexual "responsibility." Understanding, with queer theory, that sublimation can be a form of pleasure in a non-heterosexual community, the book views James's erotic economy of artistic production—even as it increasingly emphasized self-discipline—as a means of circumventing the suppression of sexual nonconformity.

Engage Literacy is the new reading scheme from Raintree that introduces engaging and contemporary content to motivate and support early readers while providing a reliable and instructional framework. All titles are precisely levelled, with new vocabulary being introduced and reinforced throughout the levels. This is a level 25 non-fiction title in the Lime book band level.

Engage Literacy is the new reading scheme from Raintree that introduces engaging and contemporary content to motivate and support early readers while providing a reliable and instructional framework. All titles are precisely levelled, with new vocabulary being introduced and reinforced throughout the levels. This is a level 20 fiction title in the Purple book band level.

Grace and Dad are about to move away from the jetty when all of a sudden, there is a loud bark! Will Dad let Grace’s dog come along on the fishing trip? Or will Buddy be left behind?

Pearls are one of the oldest precious gemstones. They have been revered through history and the best reserved to adorn royalty and their favourites. Now, with the arrival of freshwater pearls, they are available to suit every pocket and every style, from the classic to the most creative. It includes a guide to the types of pearl and to the farming process. It gives advice on buying pearls; what to look for and what to avoid and gives instruction on working with pearls, including drilling, setting and knotting. Finally, there is information on South Sea, Tahitian, Akoya, freshwater and natural pearls. This practical book celebrates their exquisite beauty and enduring elegance.